gregladen | January 5, 2009South of the Zambezi River, along the eastern side of Africa, things get dryer and dryer as you go south, until you finally reach the southernmost end of the continent where things become a little bit moister again.
A couple of thousand years ago cattle keeping people speaking Bantu languages and possessing mainly Banutu cultural traits ... the ancestors of the present day Shona, Venda Tswana, Zulu, etc. .... were living in this area, keeping their cattle, and doing all sorts of interesting stuff.
As climate fluctuated year to year and decade to decade, there moved north and south a kind of…
gregladen | January 4, 2009The original video couldn't make it, so here's a substitute teacher video:
gregladen | January 4, 2009Helen Suzman was for many years a lone voice among white South Africans in power, actively opposing Apartheid. She died on New Years day at the ripe old age ofr 91.
She was buried today.
The mourners included President Kgalema Motlanther and the last leader of apartheid regime, F W de Klerk.
Mr de Klerk described Mrs Suzman as "one of South Africa's great icons".
"Suzman was my mentor, she was opposed to the abuse of power by the old apartheid regime," South Africa's opposition leader Helen Zille - who also attended the funeral - said.
"She was also opposed to the current abuses of power…
gregladen | January 4, 2009UPDATE: We suck. They're pretty good. We do not deserve to win. If by some chance we do manage to win, we should not accept it. We suck.
... is going pretty well. We are losing by only a small amount.
Mike wanted me to live blog this game, but I assure you that you don't want me doing that. I don't know enough about football and would only embarrass myself.
I will tell you one small football story, though, to keep you amused during half time.
Several years ago, I think the last time the Vike's were in the playoffs, we were up against the Falcons. Now, at the time I lived in Falcon…
gregladen | January 4, 2009I would like to begin by reminding you that the next edition of the Linnaeus' Legacy blog carnival will be hosted HERE In theory, it will come out tomorrow, but I have the sense that a few more submissions (your?) are still to come in, so I may delay posting until Tuesday morning. So you have time (any time today, Sunday, or tomorrow, Monday) to send in your submissions on the diversity of life, it's classification and analysis, and stuff!
Now, on to a listing of some of the current carnivals:
Linnaeus' Legacy No. 14: A Carnival of Diversity
The carnival of sexuality
January Scientiae…
gregladen | January 4, 2009Ebola is a viral disease that only occasionally infects humans, but when it does, he fatality rate is very high. In some population, where culturally determined methods of treating the dead involve a lot of contact with bodily fluids and where people are unaware of techniques to avoid spread of infection and are otherwise at risk, a large percentage of a rural village population can become infected, and the survival rate once infected can be as low as 10%. With increased awareness of how to avoid infection and even the most basic improvements in patient care, these numbers can be much…
gregladen | January 4, 2009Sheril has asked for suggestion on live trapping mice, and since this is a bit involved I thought I'd blog it. Please feel free to add your suggestions below.
First, on the bait. Mice are granivores, so attract them to grain. The ultimate grain ... the orgasmically excellent purest grain-extract champaign of grain, the grain that a mouse will (literally) die for ... is wheat germ.
Wheat germ does not behave well in a trap situation, so mix the wheat germ with peanut butter so you can stick it on stuff.
There are several kinds of traps that work well. You should browse around for the…
gregladen | January 4, 2009... regarding the likely response by Coleman following the certification of the Minnesota Senatorial Race tomorrow (Monday) by the Canvassing Board.
No matter who wins, either party can lodge a legal challenge, potentially pushing the election results out quite a period of time from now. In 1969, Minnesota was unable to certify their Senator until well in to March.
But this isn't the 1960s, and Norm Coleman surely knows that.
Just because he challenges the election, which is something he's well poised himself to do, it doesn't mean the outcome will change. If he fights tooth and nail to…
gregladen | January 4, 2009The following announcement is from Nature.
About a year ago, an Editorial in these pages urged scientists and their institutions to 'spread the word' and highlight reasons why scientists can treat evolution by natural selection as, in effect, an established fact (see Nature 451, 108; 2008).
This week we are following our own prescription. Readers will find at http://www.nature.com/evolutiongems a freely accessible resource for biologists and others who wish to explain to students, friends or loved ones just what is the evidence for evolution by natural selection. Entitled '15 evolutionary…
gregladen | January 4, 2009I am NOT hallucinating! I wasn't sure at first, but I checked on YouTube and Game Show in my Head is real! And it's below the fold...
I love the way the wife keeps thinking this nightmare is over, but it isn't until it is....
This is why you can NEVER believe anything you see on the news:
And this, perhaps, is why most marriages fail. Or at least, we see here an explanation for most male behavior:
gregladen | January 3, 2009This is the ONLY documentary I've ever seen that tells it like it really is in the natural world.
Fuck Planet Earthby Nyxem
gregladen | January 3, 2009And the worst case scenario is that this lead could drop by far less then necessary to turn the race around.
Everyone assumes that the loser, in this case Coleman, will file a law suit. It would fit with how the game has been played so far. But what would such a law suit do? It is not the case that there is some 300 votes laying around that Coleman could have if he won a suit. The best he could probably do, and this is very unlikely, is to get about 130 votes that may or may not have been double counted thrown out. Not enough.
The other thing Coleman could do with a law suit is to…
gregladen | January 3, 2009Or perhaps just the scariest... Game Show In My Head.
(Chances are this has been on TV for years and I've never noticed it, but we just happened to watch it tonight. Not that we ever watch TV ... we just happened to bump into the TV and it turned on and stuff.)
Have you seen it?
gregladen | January 2, 2009As a daughter, I was raised to know nothing about money. Whenever I tried to ask my father a question on the subject he would respond, "Nu, Daphne? Since when the interest in business?" and shoo me away.
... apropos our discussion here, read about Bernie Madoff -> here
ty Ana
gregladen | January 2, 2009Scientists monitoring at Mount Moreland - South Africa's largest Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica roost - have captured their first overseas ringed bird from a festively snowy location. The young Barn Swallow had flown all the way from Finland - a total of 11,000 km! "This is an amazing Christmas gift", said Hilary Vickers of the Lake Victoria Conservancy - sponsors of the Mount Moreland ringing programme.
"We were carefully fitting the swallows with rings so we can monitor their movements when we spotted a bird already carrying one", said Mount Moreland bird-ringer Andrew Pickles. "A magnifying…
gregladen | January 2, 2009A French warship has intercepted two suspected pirate boats in the Gulf of Aden and arrested eight Somalis on board, the French navy says.
International naval patrols are credited with helping deter most recent hijack attempts off Somalia, with only two ships captured last month.
But pirates still managed to hijack a cargo vessel with 28 Egyptian crew members on board on Thursday.
bbc
gregladen | January 2, 2009I live in Minnesota, and our team is the Vikings. So I know something about losing, and from this perspective, I can explain to you what Norm Coleman is doing.
First, the context. Tomorrow, Saturday, the canvassing board will open and count absentee ballots and add that to the mix. As I demonstrated to you mathematically it is highly unlikely that this will change the current situation, in which Al Franken is ahead. To be more exact, the Worst Case Scenario estimate that I made predicts that with 650 or so ballots to open, there is a better than 75% chance that the count will not change…
gregladen | January 2, 2009With the increased seismic activity in the Yellowstone Caldera, it is likely that there is some increased interest in in the geology of the area. Here are some resources that should be of interest.
First, we have a fairly recent peer reviewed publication on the "Super Volcano" known as Yellowstone, including some discussion of just what a "Super Volcano" is.
The largest scale of volcanic eruptions, the so-called super-eruptions, can
destroy all living beings and infrastructure over tens of thousands of square
kilometres, can disrupt agriculture over millions of square kilometres and can…
gregladen | January 2, 2009Abundant tiny particles of diamond dust exist in sediments dating to 12,900 years ago at six North American sites, adding strong evidence for Earth's impact with a rare swarm of carbon-and-water-rich comets or carbonaceous chondrites, reports a nine-member scientific team.
story here
gregladen | January 1, 2009You have already heard that there has been increased seismic activity at Yellowstone National Park over the last few days. Since December 26th, there have been several earthquakes a day, some jut over 3.0 magnitude, in the vicinity of the north side of Yellowstone's lake. This is a seismically active region, but the level of earthquake activity being seen now is much greater than seen in perhaps decades (though the data are still not sufficiently analyzed to make positive comparisons yet).
Volcano experts have absolutely no clue as to what this means. A major reason for virtually total…